BRUSSELS, Nov. 17 -- The European Union (EU) may take action against a new bird flu that has cropped up in some member states, a European Commission (EC) spokesperson said on Monday.

The highly contagious form of bird flu called H5N8 was detected at a farm in the Netherlands on Sunday. As a result, around 150,000 layer chickens were exterminated and the farm was disinfected.

A similar incident was reported in Britain which resulted in 6,000 ducks killed. Protection zoning measures have been applied to both cases so that the poultry would not infect other poultry populations in the area, the EC spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the affected regions had followed all the protocols and praised the action taken by Britain and the Netherlands to combat the bird flu. The virus was also detected earlier this month in Germany.

Before taking further action, the Commission will review the cases again on Thursday, the spokesperson revealed.